~ Le Vięt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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Vietnam to reshuffle communist leadership

HANOI - Vietnam's ruling Communist Party is widely expected to reshuffle its leadership this week but continue on the path of greater economic openness and global integration. Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, who is 72, and President Tran Duc Luong, who is 68, are both anticipated to step down to make way for younger leaders at the party's congress, held once every five years. The party will also decide whether 65-year-old General Secretary Nong Duc Manh remains in the top post.

Who the new leaders will be is still a mystery, but what is not in question is the country's overall direction, analysts said. "I don't see any deep ideological disputes. I see horse trading and factional infighting but Vietnam has already made the tough decisions politically," said Long Le, a researcher and lecturer in Vietnamese studies at the University of Houston in Texas. The once deep-seated battles over whether to open up Vietnam's entrenched state enterprise to outside competition have been buried as Hanoi pushes for acceptance by the World Trade Organization this year.

Vietnam's booming economic growth — a record 8.4 percent last year — and rising foreign investment have bolstered the arguments in favor of the country's shift toward market-oriented reforms. A few years ago, "even to move one degree of reform brought in ideological objections and arguments. (But now) the main trajectory is done," said Carlyle Thayer, a Vietnam expert who teaches at the Australian Defence Force Academy.

Instead, Vietnam's Communist Party is finding itself preoccupied with a different challenge; a spiraling corruption scandal at the Transport Ministry reportedly involving millions in funds earmarked for infrastructure projects siphoned off to pay for luxury cars and gambling on European soccer matches. The scandal has reached the top levels of government, with Minister Dao Dinh Binh already forced to resign — only the second minister in Vietnam ever thrown out over corruption charges — and several in his ministry placed under arrest.

Though major corruption cases have been uncovered before, this case has had an international spotlight, since much of the money was apparently development assistance given by the World Bank and Japan, among others. At a press briefing last week ahead of the meeting, Politburo member Phan Dien warned that corruption has become "a danger that even threatens the survival of our regime."

The country's normally restrained state-run media has taken aggressive aim in the current scandal, linking family members of senior officials to the corruption and printing calls for the resignation of key leaders. The scandal even provoked comment from Vo Nguyen Giap, the 94-year-old retired general who masterminded the defeat of the French and then the Americans in Vietnam. He urged the party congress to attack the corruption issue head-on. In the end, which new leaders are chosen may come down to who has managed to keep the cleanest reputation amid a bureaucracy associated with graft.

By Tini Tran - The Associated Press - April 16, 2006.